Schedule & Information

Fumiya Iida is a reader in robotics at Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, the director of Bio-Inspired Robotics, and the deputy director of EPSRC Centre of Doctoral Training in Agri-Food Robotics. He received his bachelor and master degrees in mechanical engineering at Tokyo University of Science (Japan, 1999), and Dr. sc. nat. in Informatics at University of Zurich (2006). In 2004 and 2005, he was also engaged in biomechanics research of human locomotion at Locomotion Laboratory, University of Jena (Germany). From 2006 to 2009, he worked as a postdoctoral associate at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology in USA. In 2006, he awarded the Fellowship for Prospective Researchers from the Swiss National Science Foundation, and in 2009, the Swiss National Science Foundation Professorship for an assistant professorship at ETH Zurich from 2009 to 2015. He was a recipient of the IROS2016 Fukuda Young Professional Award, Royal Society Translation Award in 2017, Tokyo University of Science Award in 2021. His research interest includes biologically inspired robotics, embodied artificial intelligence, and biomechanics, where he was involved in a number of research projects related to dynamic legged locomotion, dextrous and adaptive manipulation, human-machine interactions, and evolutionary robotics. URL: http://birlab.org/

Elliot W. Hawkes is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at UCSB. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University, where he also earned his MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering. Previously, he worked at the Harvard Microrobotics Lab and the ETH Multi-scale Robotics Lab. His lab's research is at the intersection of design, mechanics, and materials, and develops novel mechanisms and applies non-traditional materials to solve challenging problems in robotics, medicine, and biomechanics. He recently received the NSF CAREER Award, the NASA Early Career Faculty Award, the IEEE RAS Early Career Award, and the Packard Fellowship. His work has received press from outlets such as the NY Times, BBC, the Wall Street Journal, and the Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Dr. David Hu is a mechanical engineer who studies the interactions of animals with water. His team has discovered how dogs shake dry, how insects walk on water, and how eyelashes protect the eyes from drying. Originally from Rockville, Maryland, he earned degrees in mathematics and mechanical engineering from M.I.T., and is now Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Biology and Adjunct Professor of Physics at Georgia Tech. He is a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER award for young scientists, the Ig Nobel Prize in Physics, and the Pineapple Science Prize (the Ig Nobel of China). He serves on the editorial board of Nature Scientific Reports and The Journal of Experimental Biology. His work has been featured in The Economist, The New York Times, Saturday Night Live, and Highlights for Children. He has defended basic research in a Scientific American article, Confessions of a Wasteful Scientist. He lives with his wife Jia and children Harry and Heidi in Atlanta, Georgia.

Kyu-Jin Cho received B.S and M.S. degrees from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea and a Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from MassachusetS Institute of Technology. He was a post­doctoral fellow at Harvard Microrobotics Laboratory一 At present he is an associate professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, the director of Soft Robotics Research Center and die director of Biorobotics Laboratory at Seoul National University. His research interests include biologically inspired robotics, soft robotics, soft UTarable devices：novel mechanisms using smart structures, and rehabilitation and assistive robotics. He has been exploring novel soft bio-inspired robot designs, including a water jumping robot, flytrap inspired robot and a soft wearable robot for the hand, called Exo-Glove. The work on the water jumping robot was published in SCIENCE and covered by over 300 news media world-wide. He has received the 2014 IEEE RAS Early Academic Career Award for his fundamental contributions to soft robotics and biologically inspired robot design. He has also received the 2014 ASME Compliant Mechanism Award, 2013 IROS Best Video Award, 2015 KROS Hakbo ART (Assistive Robotic Technology) Award and 2013 KSPE Paik Am Award. The Biorobotics Lab has won the 1st RoboSoft Grand Challenge (April, 2016) sponsored by European Commission with the robot “SNUXIAX¹' in Livorno, Italy.

Sina Heydari is a PhD candidate in the Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering department at the University of Southern California (USC). He received his B.Sc. from Sharif University of Technology in 2016 and his M.Sc. from USC in 2018. He’s currently a research assistant in Prof. Kanso’s Bioinspired Motion Lab at USC, where he designs mathematical models to study the physics of biological systems like fish schools and Echinoderms. His work on sea star inspired locomotion has been featured on outlets like BBC News, KQED and Evolution News.

Katia Bertoldi’s research involves the use of continuum mechanics and applied mathematics to model the mechanical behavior of novel materials at the small scale, such as nano-composites and biological composites. The aim of her group is to establish relationships between the internal structure of a material and its mechanical properties. The greater understanding of existing and potential discovery of new materials, especially those with improved and even ‘tunable’ properties, have direct use in many critical fields, including acoustics, optics, and electronics. Her primary areas of interest include: continuum mechanics analyses of behavior of modern materials; buckling and instabilities; waves propagation; constitutive modeling of polymers; computational mechanics; fracture mechanics; applied mathematics; and the mechanical behavior of biological materials. Prior to her appointment at Harvard, Bertoldi was an Assistant Professor at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. She earned a Ph.D. in Mechanics of Materials and Structures from the University of Trento in Italy; an International Masters in Structural Engineering from Chalmers University of Technology in Goteborg, Sweden; and a Laurea Degree in Civil Engineering from University of Trento.